


an unnatural progression

by santanico



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drinking, F/M, Fingerfucking, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Pining, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:35:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santanico/pseuds/santanico
Summary: Hawke laughs, soft, breathless. Varric shuts his eyes again. He wants to fall asleep and wake up with her gone, with this all something that he can only imagine isakinto a dream. It’s something he’d write in one of his books, he thinks. A woman flitting off in the mid-morning, leaving the yearning man alone with his thoughts, the tension between them wrought endlessly. Varric will never see the end of this, he’s sure.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Varric Tethras
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	an unnatural progression

**Author's Note:**

> for my wife @[audenrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/audenrain/pseuds/audenrain)

“Alright, alright,” Varric announces to the table, “I think it’s time I get Hawke home.” Anders and Isabela _boo_ in tandem - Fenris is slouched on the table, barely upright and he makes a meager grunt of disapproval. Isabela and Merrill are chipper as ever, despite the hour. Varric is surprised that Merrill can actually hold her liquor as well as Isabela.

Hawke is everyone’s favourite Hawke that night. She’s full of righteous fury and has been shouting about injustice with Anders and getting very close to threatening the small table of Templars on the other side of the bar. On the fifth drought of ale she’d finally grown quiet, her eyes darkening as she hunched over the table. Varric truly isn’t sure how she hasn’t started dry-heaving yet, considering the number of shots Isabela had ordered for the table (on Varric’s tab, no doubt) on top of all the beer.

Varric, knowing his own limits, had thrown at least two of said shots over his shoulder when Isabela had them all drink in unison, and he’d been nursing the same beer for a couple of hours.

“You two are such spoilsports,” moans Isabela.

“No,” Anders says, his expression sobering. “Varric is right.” Anders stands and taps Fenris on the back of his head. “Elf. C’mon, time to go.” Fenris flinches and scowls as he sits up, groaning.

“Hawke,” Isabela whines. “Don’t go. It’s barely past midnight.”

Varric scoffs. “Didn’t know you couldn’t read a clock, Rivaini,” he says. She glares at him, pouting out her lower lip at Hawke who just stares back at her, unblinking. “Hawke, c’mon, I’ll walk with ya.”

Hawke lets out a breath and stands up, sudden, her first real movement since Varric announced their departure. “What makes you think I need an escort?” she says.

“Right,” Varric says, trying to contain his surprise at her composure. “Well, then...I’m heading to bed.”

“One last round?” Isabela tries. “Anders? Merrill?”

Anders groans. “No, come on, we’ve gotta get home.” Fenris is already stumbling towards the door alone, and Anders joins him, waving a quick _goodbye_ over his shoulder.

Merrill gives Isabela her sweetest smile. “I’m sorry,” she says. “You know how the alienage is in the early morning.”

They dissipate slowly, much to the relief of the bartender who starts to clean the tables and heads behind the bar to count his coin as the group of them head to the front door. Isabela gathers her cards and takes her glass and waves Hawke and Varric off as she climbs the stairs to her rented room. Hawke is slow to move but sways slightly on her feet, less composed than she had appeared. She takes her beer to the counter and leaves two gold on the table.

“G’night, Varric,” she says, hovering at the door.

“You sure you don’t want me to walk with you? Just to help...clear your head?”

Hawke peers at him and he has no idea what she’s thinking.

“Fine,” she says. “If you’re so desperate to see me home safe.”

-

Varric can’t quite pinpoint it - why it’s awkward. Hawke’s steps are much more careful than usual, like she’s putting each foot in front of the other with deliberation. He lets his mind wonder; perhaps she’s trying not to act drunk, but he can’t think of a reason why. He’s seen her wasted before; Hawke is the type to bribe Anders into magicking her drink even stronger, so she can drink less and get wasted harder and faster.

The Hawke he’s looking at now is quiet, stoic, her arms hanging heavy at her side.

“So,” he says, finally breaking the silence.

“So,” she says back before he can think of anything else to say. “You think I can’t handle myself?”

“Huh? C’mon, Hawke, you’re absolutely...blitzed,” he says.

“Blitzed,” she repeats. “Maybe.”

“Varric,” she says, emphasis focused on every letter. “What if I’m frightened?”

“I think we all are,” he says, quickly enough that he hopes she doesn’t notice his hesitation. “Things are weird.”

Hawke goes quiet again, and neither of them says anything as they continue down the street, towards the estate. Varric thinks about Hawke, and her newfound glory. She doesn’t seem like a wealthy political figure, here in a linen tunic with boots made of the cheapest nug leather she could find.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, looking up at her own home.

“Pretty impressive,” he agrees, watching her.

“I hate it.”

Varric flinches. “Don’t say that,” he says quietly.

“It’s empty, without Bethany. Without Carver. What’s the point?”

He’s at a loss for words. The Circle’s not so bad, he wants to say, knee-jerk, but what should she care what he thinks? It would be a lie anyway, and she’d know it.

“I know,” he says. “There’s nothing we could have done.”

“She could have come with us. I thought I was keeping her safe.”

He’s never heard her talk like this. When it had happened - when the Circle had dragged Bethany away, when Leandra had crossed her arms and said _This is all your fault, you should have taken her with you!_ Hawke had said nothing, had kept her promises. She had confided to him that she was glad Bethany was at the Circle, and not somewhere worse. She had said it with such conviction that she looked sick.

“You don’t know what would have happened if she’d been there. It’s the Deep Roads.”

“We all came out fine,” she says, clenching her teeth. “And now Bethany’s...It doesn’t matter. You’re right.”

“Hawke, that’s not what I…” He trails off and looks at her. She sets her jaw and she climbs the stairs of the estate, taking each with slow, unsteady steps, hand on the rail. He follows her, even though he feels like he shouldn’t.

At the top of the stairs, she looks at him and smirks.

“I’d invite you in, but I know you’d refuse me.”

She turns around and opens the door before Varric has time to process what she means.

-

Hawke doesn’t say anything. She barely acknowledges her own drunkenness, doesn’t even joke about it like she usually does, like it was some different person. She meets Varric at the edge of the city, Anders and Fenris hungover but in tow, and she looks as slick as always, knives at her hip, potions on her belt.

Varric decides if she won’t say anything, he won’t say anything either.

-

Isabela notices the difference. If anyone was going to, Varric knew it would be her, and he’d tried his best not to appear spooked or afraid of Hawke, but he must have failed, because she comes to his room at the Hanged Man, sits on the floor in front of his bed, and says, “Oh, Varric.”

“Yes, Rivaini?”

“What happened with you and Hawke?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says.

“You’re pretending. You’re doing that thing you do, when you act like everything’s fine, like you have no idea what’s going on. Do you really think that you’re so far removed from reality?”

He sets down his leatherbound notebook and glares at her. “What do you think? Three guesses. And then I’ll tell you.”

Isabela raises her eyebrow high. “Hm. Well. I’ll go from most to least outrageous.”

“Sure,” he says. He wonders what she’ll consider outrageous.

“Hm, hm,” Isabela hums, sing-song. “She sucked your cock and when you tried to return the favour, you couldn’t make her cum. Now things are awkward.”

Varric blinks at her. “That’s the most outrageous guess?”

“Oh? Did I get it?”

He laughs, harder than he thought he could.

“Okay, so not quite. Hm. She has a Qunari lover and you told her it’s too dangerous, look at the city! And she told you, _Varric, you’re my best friend in the whole wide world, but I just can’t help it, his dick is so…_ ” Isabela mimics a moan and throws her head back. Varric groans.

“You should have led with that one.”

“Ha! I didn’t think there was anything more ridiculous than _you_ and _Hawke_ and _s-e-x._ ” She spells out the word, writes it in the air with her index finger. “But clearly I was wrong, and that...that’s intriguing.”

Varric stares at her again. “Well, she doesn’t have a Qunari lover - to my knowledge - and no, we haven’t had sex.” It’s not a lie, so he doesn’t have to worry about being caught in one. “You have one more guess. Better make it good. And if it’s the least outrageous one, I don’t know that you have much of a chance.”

Isabela falls back on the floor, spreading her arms out. She sighs. “You two had a fight. Some kind of big falling out. And now she won’t talk to you.”

“It’s the closest you got,” he says, not sure if he’s really being honest but it also doesn’t feel like a lie. “Well, something like that, at least.”

Isabela sits up. “I don’t like it,” she says. “Hawke without Varric is barely Hawke at all. And same for you. Flip it ‘round.”

“That’s not true,” he says. “At least not in her case.”

“Well, you need to figure things out. She’s been all mopey and tense and it’s not fun.”

Varric shrugs. “Fair enough, I guess,” he says. “Look, I’m not gonna say much, but this isn’t actually my fault, okay? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No,” Isabela says, pushing herself up onto her feet and dusting her palms off on her thighs. “I’m sure you were the perfect gentleman, as always. Maybe that’s the problem.”

Varric snorts. “Yeah, maybe it really is,” he agrees as she heads back into the bar.

-

Now that Varric’s been _in_ the Fade, more or less, he isn’t exactly sure what’s so great about dreams. Humans always write them or talk about them as if they’re some great romantic experience, but Varric’s main source of knowledge - at least from what he hears - is that nightmares are much more common, and most dreams are nonsense, anyway.

But he knows about sex dreams.

So when he wakes up with his dick throbbing hard in his underclothes, his thoughts shoot immediately over to what kind of dream he _could_ have had.

He lays awake, staring at the ceiling as his eyes adjust to the dim light. It’s early morning, very early - birds starting to titter outside the Hanged Man, but there’s no movement in the building, no footsteps this early. He closes his eyes and tries to relax, to will away his arousal, but it isn’t happening.

Instead, tiny little thoughts keep entering his head, plastering to his eyelids.

Hawke is undressing. She’s looking at him, in the vision, smiling. She’s washed her face and her eyes are clear, bright blue, staring right through him. She’s on her knees, she has her hand on his cock and her fingers are smooth, her nails are clean and short and shining. She licks the head. He palms himself, tries to urge it down but it does the opposite, heat flaring in his stomach, aching in his groin.

Hawke flutters her eyes shut and traces her tongue up the shaft. She kisses the tip, starting to suck. Varric shoves his hand under the waist of his underwear, giving up on any restraint, and pulls. He lets the vision of Hawke on his dick unravel, going into wilder thoughts. She swallows, she presses her fingers to his hips, she blinks her thick eyelashes at him, she laughs. He thinks about coming in her mouth and it’s over; he tugs his calloused fingers over his cock one last time and it twitches in his hand, cum sputtering on his palm and his clothes.

Varric lets out a breath and curses, throwing an arm over his eyes.

Hells, he didn’t think it would come to this.

-

He tries not to think about it. He’s thought about _it_ before, but never in such detail. Passing thoughts about friends are normal, and that’s how he’s always reasoned with it. He’s seen Anders stare at Fenris and he’s seen Isabela stare at Anders and he’s even caught Aveline watching Hawke with a questionable closeness when they play Wicked Grace with stripping.

And he still remembers what Hawke said, that night, her drunken confession - if he can even call it that - and it makes him wonder, has she thought the same things about him? Has she wondered? Has she lain in bed, staring at the ceiling?

That’s the problem. Every time he remembers, it comes back to it, and he gets overwhelmed, and he has to look away. And then Hawke notices, and it’s terrible because she’s just getting back to normal, teasing him again, and Isabela had told him she was happy they talked about it, whatever it was, because it was starting to get _weird_.

“Varric. You’re going to walk right into a wall with the way you’re staring.”

“Staring at what, Killer?” Varric says. He laughs to try to dissipate the tension.

Fenris glares at him. “Can we just keep going? The slavers should be through this way.”

“Patience, Fenris,” Hawke says, and somehow it’s _soothing_ and not condescending, and Fenris seems to relax. Varric truly wonders where she gets her touch from - he doesn’t think it comes from the Amell side. He can only imagine her father had a way with words.

Like anything else, Varric goes through the motions. Anders complains the whole time - _I can’t keep up with you Varric, I’m running out of Lyrium potions!_ he calls after the third time Varric asks for healing. He’s distracted, he’s out of his mind, but he pretends not to be, because at this point he doesn’t have a damn choice.

When they finally get out of the caverns, Hawke is a hero once again - she’s somehow managed to please both Fenris and Anders, working her twisted charm to satisfy both of their emotional needs - Varric calls for drinks.

“I’m buyin’,” he says, when Fenris and Anders eye him with suspicion. “Look,” he says, “it’s been a long week.”

“We were all black-out drunk on Monday, Varric,” Anders says. “Not that I’m complaining,” he says after a short beat, “I’m just saying, it hasn’t even...alright, nevermind, let’s just go.”

-

Isabela is easy enough to convince. She drags Merrill out from the alienage and plies her with ale until Merrill is a giggling mess again. Fenris seems to be uninterested in drinking and watches them with suspicion, sipping the same mug over the hours. Hawke is similar, nursing the cocktail Varric had ordered for her at the start of the night and nibbling on her plate of fried potatoes. Aveline waves them off, talking of guard duties and a long night ahead of her. Varric’s sure she’s full of shit.

Varric, on the other hand, decides that it’s his turn. He’s got the extra coin and nothing on the agenda for tomorrow, and he can’t get out of his own mind for more than a few seconds - this seems like a good enough reason as any. He wants to drink until he can’t anymore, and thank Andraste that Isabela is there to egg him on, and Anders, too, calling out for more beer, more liquor, and Varric drinks as quickly as he can, only stepping outside to piss in the alley when he’s fully inebriated, stars blocking his eyelids every time he shuts them.

“Oy, Varric.”

“Andraste’s ass, Hawke!” Even through the haze, Varric has the common sense to be embarrassed and he turns his back to Hawke with a shuffle, buttoning up his trousers before he turns around to face her. “Can’t a man piss by himself anymore?”

Hawke’s arms are crossed and she’s leaning against the filthy brick walls of the Hanged Man, eyebrows knitted and lips pressed tight together. Varric focuses almost totally on staying upright. Usually peeing at least gives him a feigned sense of sobriety, even if only momentarily, but this time he realizes he’s gone much too far.

“Don’t fall over,” Hawke says.

“I’m...not going to…” Varric says. He doesn’t finish his sentence. He blinks at her. “Why’d ya interrupt me, again?” He’s not sure if she said it and he just doesn’t remember, or if she’s just been staring at him with those cold eyes for an hour or two. “It’s so cold.”

“It’s a bit brisk, yes,” Hawke agrees, pushing off the wall and dusting off her shoulder. “Thought you might die, Varric. The way you stumbled out the door. It was something else.”

“I’m fine,” he says.

“You’re slurring like one of Isabela’s pirate friends when she’s conning them out of coin,” Hawke says. She rolls her eyes. Varric wonders how she does that, so slowly, so clearly.

“I’m taking you to bed,” she says.

“Hah,” Varric half-shouts. “So I really _am_ the gentleman.”

“Maker’s breath, Varric,” Hawke mutters. “You’re such a child. Do you know how long you’ve been out here? Were you just staring at the wall until you pulled your dick out? They all left, Varric. It’s just us and Isabela.”

“What’d you stick around for?” He doesn’t have the capacity to think about how he really must have been standing out here in the cold, staring point blank at a brick wall for ten minutes.

“Well, had to make sure you weren’t killed by bandits,” she says. “Like I always say, you’re my favourite dwarf.”

“You’re so full of shit, Hawke,” Varric mutters. 

“Come on, then,” she murmurs.

He doesn’t remember the rest.

When Varric wakes up, it’s early morning and his head is in Hawke’s lap.

She’s dozing, her hand in his hair. 

The thought of moving even an inch is unimaginably painful, so he lies completely still and waits for Hawke to stir.

“Ah,” she says after a few moments. “You still drunk?”

“A bit,” he says, hoarsely.

Hawke draws her fingers through his hair, untangling knots as she goes. One moment there’s a little twinge of pain; the next he can hear the rustle of strands against skin ringing in his ears. She breathes a soft sigh.

“I guess we’re even now.”

“I’d hardly call it that,” Varric says, but his voice is still barely a whisper.

“We both saw each other at our worst,” Hawke says.

“If you think that’s my _worst_ , you’ve got another thing coming.”

Hawke laughs, soft, breathless. Varric shuts his eyes again. He wants to fall asleep and wake up with her gone, with this all something that he can only imagine is _akin_ to a dream. It’s something he’d write in one of his books, he thinks. A woman flitting off in the mid-morning, leaving the yearning man alone with his thoughts, the tension between them wrought endlessly. Varric will never see the end of this, he’s sure.

Instead, Hawke strokes his hair. It’s an oddly peaceful sort of moment, as the sun starts to slowly seep through into the bar, casting shadows into the rooms in the back. Varric keeps thinking he really is going to drift off to sleep, but every time he gets close, Hawke shifts or moves in such a way that he’s jolted back into reality.

-

Varric wants to agree, for things to be normal, but they aren’t. Hawke pretends they are, laughs her way through fights barely blinking, drinks her way through the Hanged Man’s supply of ale until she genuinely has to go down to the docks to pay for more because the owner refuses to work harder than they’re already making him.

Varric wonders idly if they’ll ever talk honestly again. Not that their relationship is strained - they feel more normal than they have in months, in fact - but Varric always senses what’s left unsaid, and he has to question _why_. Was Hawke’s drunken invitation just that, and she was weird about it for nothing? Did she think Varric’s comment was only meant to throw her off, scare her away? Or was she being typical, cliche even, assuming that anything more than friendship would ruin what they worked so hard to keep?

Varric imagined it couldn’t be that last one, because he didn’t think Hawke was an idiot. But he also didn’t know what to do about it, and so it sits in the air, unresolved, like so many things in his life.

It seems only fitting, then, that they would end up crossing with bandits in Lowtown, alone. Usually Hawke tows them all along like children, has them fulfill her epic quests together, but on this day she had asked Varric to join her because she had issues with the Coterie and she thought that having only a dwarf at her side would make her appear less threatening.

“It was the crossbow that tipped them off,” she mutters, slouched in front of Anders’ clinic, blood still oozing out through the makeshift bandage Varric had crafted on her arm. “We could have resolved it peacefully, otherwise.”

Varric crouches beside her. “Liar,” he says. Anders brings him a fresh bandage and Varric starts unwrapping the bloody one. Hawke winces and grits her teeth. “You were at their throats from the moment we got in there.”

Hawke laughs. “Fair enough,” she says, relenting. “Anders,” she calls after the mage. “You got a spell that’ll make me feel drunk?”

“Hawke,” Anders says dryly, “you need to lay off. Natural remedies today.”

“That makes me sound like an addict,” Hawke retorts, glaring at Anders.

“You said it, not me,” Anders says. “It’s really not that bad. Though you should really think back to the last time you took an arrow like this and if it bled this much.”

Hawke scowls at Anders again and sighs, leaning her head back against the dusty wall. “If I hadn’t attacked first, they would have.”

“Maybe,” Varric says, pulling the bandage snug around her wound. “How much _have_ you been drinking? I’ve never seen you bleed like this.”

Hawke shrugs. “What does it matter to you? Or to anyone? How I spend my coin? Maker, you’re all so clingy, I swear it.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Varric sighs. “Lift. Thanks. There. Nice and tight. That should stall the bleeding for...a few moments. Tits, Hawke, are you feeling okay?”

Hawke hums. “I’m alright, Varric.”

“Lucky Blondie was here.”

“Are we?” Hawke says. “Can’t believe that boy. What a prick.”

Varric chuckles. “Maybe he’s just trying to remind you of your mortality.”

“Like I need reminders,” Hawke snaps back, a little too quickly. “Fine. Varric. I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

“Don’t be,” Varric says. “Okay, hold on.” He takes Hawke’s arm again and presses his palm onto the wound, squeezing. She bites her lip and lets out a soft breath. “Sorry. But the bleeding isn’t exactly stopping.”

“I know, Varric,” Hawke says. They sit like that for a couple of minutes, in silence. Anders comes to check on them, a glass of water in hand.

“Here,” he says, handing it off to Hawke who throws it back like a shot. “I have you on strict bed rest until that heals. It might take a few days. Don’t look at me like that - you’ll survive. Read a book or something. I hear Varric’s famous for writing them.”

“Don’t start,” Varric says, glowering at Anders. Anders just laughs.

“Good girl, drink up - I crushed up some herbs for pain in there. Should take away some of the throbbing for a good twenty-four hours. I’m sure you’ll send your carer back for more when it wears off.”

“Oh, shut up,” Hawke calls after him as Anders turns to another patient in a bed down the hall. “Okay, I need to get out of here,” she says, and Varric helps her up. “Back to Hightown, then.”

“Alright,” Varric says, and they stumble through the alleys together, Varric’s arm around Hawke’s waist. The Estate is empty except for Dog when they arrive, and Varric deposits Hawke on the long sofa in the front hall. She starts kicking off her armour, peeling back pieces until she’s left in her underclothes - thin leggings that probably barely prevent blisters and a long shirt tied around the middle like a makeshift belt. He doesn’t feel right watching her undress but he has nowhere else to go so he shifts idly around the large foyer, inspecting her letter-writing table and glancing back every moment or so to check on her progress.

“Anders is right,” Hawke says into the silence. “I’ve been too reckless.”

“Didn’t think I’d ever hear you admit that,” Varric says.

“This shouldn’t be so bad,” she says, gesturing to her arm. “I feel like it’s going to fall off. It wasn’t poison, right? You would have noticed poison?”

“Yeah, probably,” Varric says, and he comes back to sit beside her, settling in on the sofa besides her. He touches the bandage on her arm, turns it over in his hands. “It’s not bleeding anymore. The bandage isn’t soaked. That’s a good sign.”

Hawke scoffs. “Well, thank the Maker for small miracles, then,” she mutters. “Laid up over a bad arrow wound. Fucking pathetic.”

“Hawke,” Varric says, trying to keep his voice steady. “It’s good to take a breather.”

“Not really,” she disagrees. “It means...thinking. It means being alone.”

“You don’t live alone.”

“Might as well. Mother is never home anymore. Not that I can blame her. I’m miserable company - Gamlen’s no better.” Dog saunters up to Varric’s side and settles on the carpet, whining. “A big house feels so empty with no one in it.”

“You want me to stay, Hawke?”

She snorts. “And do what? Shall we sit in the dark together writing patriotic poetry in the name of Kirkwall? You write to Bianca and I’ll write to Bethany. The perfect pathetic couple, we’d be. Now, I’m going to stay home and just...take a nap. You should go home.”

Varric’s chest twists at the jab about Bianca; Hawke knows he’d only confided in her because he believed she wouldn’t bring it up. He brushes away the moment of hurt and instead considers that, although he’d never say it out loud, Hawke is as much _home_ to him as the Hanged Man ever has been.

Hawke shifts and settles against the cushions, closing her eyes. “Thanks for your help,” she says.

“You sound begrudging,” Varric tells her.

“Well, take it or leave it,” she says. There’s a moment’s pause. Varric watches Hawke’s face; she always frowns as she rests. Her chest rises and falls with each deep breath. He doesn’t mean to stare, but her shirt is thin and her breasts rise with each breath in. Varric sets a reminder to himself to buy her a round the next time they go drinking, as penance for being so fucking stupid.

“If you’re still here when I wake up,” Hawke mutters darkly, “I’ll kick your arse.”

“Got it,” Varric says, but he laughs anyway.

-

Varric decides that it doesn’t matter. He can continue on with Hawke as they were, and they never have to discuss a thing, never have to recognize their feelings, and they’ll move on, happy as clams. Romance was never his strong suit, and he knows he couldn’t take Hawke either, not really, and that’s all. They will go their own ways, they will run parallel paths and nothing will ever go further than thoughts.

-

Leandra’s funeral is a quiet event.

They let Bethany attend from the Circle after Hawke bribes a few Templars. Leandra wasn’t really known for having any friends, so the circle of attendees is small - Marian and Bethany, Gamlen (drunk, of course), Varric, Anders, Fenris, Merrill, Aveline and Donnic, and Isabela. A Chantry sister volunteers to read Leandra a prayer and guide her into the ground. Varric watches as they lower the casket into a hole in the dirt, miles from where Hawke’s father is buried in Lothering. They couldn’t have gone back even if they wanted to, Hawke had said. _It’s just the way things are_.

-

Varric stays with Hawke for a few weeks.

He isn’t certain why, but she doesn’t ask him to leave. She flutters about the house, never cleaning, never cooking, but always moving. He entertains the Dog and chats with Sandal. At night, they sit by the fire together and Hawke draws her legs to her chest and tells stories of her childhood. Varric catalogues the narratives away into neat little pockets in his mind. Perhaps he can spin them into tales, even if only for himself, when he gets pen and paper in hand.

Strangely, the death of her mother does not drive Hawke to drink. She stays away from the bar, in fact, despite Isabela’s urging. Hawke is quiet but at ease; until she isn’t. Varric is there when she has her fits - sometimes she just starts crying, collapses onto the floor in a pile and wails. Times like those, Varric thinks Hawke has forgotten he’s there, and he does his best to keep her from remembering, staying in corners of the house, leaving for walks when she needs to break things.

And then, just like that, it’s over. Hawke asks Varric to go with her to the Blooming Rose and he refuses. Hawke comes back giddy and drunk, her boots half-tied and her shirt hanging off her shoulder, and she tells Varric, “I’m done moping,” and sleeps in her own room again, instead of the sofa. Varric takes that as permission to go back to the Hanged Man, and he sees her there a couple of days later, waving him down, getting drinks with Fenris and Isabela.

-

“Good evening, Varric.”

“Maker’s balls, Hawke!” Varric nearly jumps out of his skin, staring at Hawke standing in his doorway, a candle in hand. It’s the only thing illuminating her figure, and Varric realizes, despite the lack of light, that she’s wearing very little besides her smallclothes. “It’s called knocking.”

“Oh, sure,” Hawke says, waving a hand at the door as she shuts it behind her. “Like it matters. You would have been scared of me anyway.”

“Yeah, well, you’re…” He trails off. Hawke is really quite underdressed for how frigid it is outside, and how much she _doesn’t_ live at the Hanged Man. Her cheeks are flushed a deep red and she’s wearing a light linen nightgown that barely brushes her at midthigh and curves deep over her collarbone, exposing the lines of her breasts. In the candlelight, he can see her nipples through the thin fabric, the lines of her ribs, the shadow of her stomach. 

“Hawke,” he says. “You’re drunk.”

“It was the only way I could work up the courage,” she says, cheerful. “What d’you say? Shall we just - get it over with?”

Varric swallows. “Get _what_ over with?”

Now Hawke looks annoyed, despite the red in her face. “Don’t play coy, you goddamn bastard. You’ve been pining and you’ve been _lying_ about it, pretending it’s not - pretending you don’t - oh, you’re a sonofabitch, you know that?”

“Hawke,” Varric says, his heartbeat racketing in his chest. “Get a hold of yourself, alright, Killer? You’re...you’re not yourself.”

Hawke heaves a loud, angry sigh. “I knew you would tell me off. I knew it. I told ‘Bela it was a waste of time.”

“Did Rivaini tell you you had to get _drunk_ for me to want you?”

Hawke shrugs, a full-body movement. She slouches against the wall, candle teetering in hand. Varric finally clamors fully out of bed and takes the candle from her, holds it steady between them. He doesn’t want to be but he’s thinking about her, despite everything.

“That’s not exactly what she said, no,” Hawke admits. “She just said...a little drink makes everything easier.”

“Well,” Varric says, “normally I would agree with her. But this is clearly not what she meant.” Varric stands up straight and takes the candle to his bedside table. He lights a couple of his small lamps and illuminates the room. The tension seeps out of the room as the brightness reflects in Hawke’s eyes. She squints and groans.

“Stupid,” she says. “I’m sorry, Varric.”

“C’mon, Hawke, get up.”

“I’ll go home.”

“Don’t be pathetic. C’mere. Get in bed.”

Hawke looks at him.

“I’m a perfect gentleman,” Varric says. “I’m not sending you on the streets...alone...wearing that.”

“Isabela has my armor,” Hawke says, weakly.

“I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ve slept on worse.”

Hawke sighs and stumbles into Varric’s bed, pulling the sheets up to her chin. “There’s room, if you want,” she says. She’s on the very edge of the bed, on her side - and there’s maybe enough room for someone named Merrill, but Varric’s bed isn’t exactly meant for couples.

“You’re sweet, Hawke,” he says, something he never really thought he’d say.

“Liar,” Hawke teases.

“Yeah, this time,” Varric says. “Good night, Hawke.”

“Good night, Varric,” Hawke whispers as her eyes flutter shut.

Varric turns off the lamps and settles on the floor.

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.

-

Hawke is gone when he wakes up - it’s only been a few hours since she interrupted him, he’s sure, but she’s long gone - and his sheets smell like her sweat. Varric crawls into bed and dozes for an hour or two until the bar starts to wake up for the day, and when he rolls out of bed he doesn’t know what to do, so he writes.

He maps out his options, tries to predict Hawke’s response to various choices. He could write her a letter, place his bets on being old-fashioned. She wouldn’t be able to take him seriously. He could wait for her to make the move again, but then there’s a fifty-fifty shot that she does it drunk again, or maybe tipsy. 

He decides, late in the afternoon, and steels himself.

When he knocks on her door, he immediately hears Dog on the other side bark and rush around the front hall. It takes a moment but eventually he hears footsteps as well, Hawke’s voice telling Dog to be quiet, and the door opens.

“Oh.”

“Not who you expected?”

Hawke has the decency to flush. “Truly not. Come in,” she says.

Varric steps inside the estate. Not much has changed since his three week stint living here, but things look tidier. Her writing desk looks better; she’s caught up on most of the requests and appears to be writing a letter to Bethany just for the pleasure of it. Varric almost feels proud of her.

“Here to tease me? Make sure I never live it down? I swear, all this back and forth needs to end.”

“No, that’s not it,” Varric says. He looks up at her. “I’m here to proposition you.”

Hawke raises an eyebrow. “You’re shitting me,” she says.

“Well, damn, Hawke,” he says.

She crosses her arms and scowls at him. “You know what I mean. What are you saying?”

“You’re not drunk. I’m not drunk. You’re right. Too much back and forth. It’s dangerous.”

Hawke laughs.

“That hurts a man’s feelings, Hawke,” he says, mildly.

“Well, when have I ever cared about that?” Hawke says. “Now? That’s quite bold of you, Varric.”

Varric, quite truthfully, has never had the opportunity to sleep with a human woman. In fact, he’s not had sex in several years, since he and Bianca first met, and that had been - it hadn’t exactly been or felt _normal_ , or _good_. It was all too high-pressure, too intense. He wasn’t one for gambling and he wasn’t one for the brothel, and he’d also never taken it upon himself to look for another partner. And then Hawke had shown up, and suddenly several years had passed and he couldn’t really seem to focus his eyesight on anyone else, and she was the only thing that felt tangible.

He can’t say that, of course, so he laughs instead, feigns a sense of composure that he doesn’t really have.

“It can be anytime, really,” he says. “Maybe you’d prefer to wait for sundown? The only thing I ask is that we’re both sober.”

“Sober,” Hawke repeats, crossing her arms and looking at him again. “You’re concerned I can’t commit to intimacy without being drunk?”

Varric frowns. “That’s not what I meant,” he says. “I just meant that between you and I, we may have had some problems. Problems that can now be resolved, because one of us is taking it into our own hands.”

Hawke laughs, a clear, crystal sound, and drops her chin to her clavicle and then shakes her head. “How awful that we ended up in this position. Varric…” She trails off, glances up at him again. “You’re an absolutely ridiculous man. Come to bed with me.”

-

If Varric loses any moment of this, Maker forgive him.

Hawke’s hands are not nearly as smooth as he imagined, but he knew that. Her palms are worn from the daggers she grips, her fingers thin, taut spindles with short, brittle nails at the end. Her touch is firm and relentless, and there’s something almost funny about it, how she pushes him down onto her sprawling bed by both shoulders, pulls his coat down his arms with those rough fingers.

He tries to react in turn, but it’s harder than he thought it would be. His heart hammers away in his chest, unable to keep sight of what’s right in front of him. Hawke brushes her hair back and reaches for his trousers.

“Whoa, Killer,” he says, taking hold of her hands. She stills on top of him. Her thighs are pressed into his; she straddles him at the waist, balancing on the mattress. Her face is illuminated by candlelight, but he can’t read her expression. “You just looking to do the deed and get back to normal?”

She hesitates. “No,” she says. “That’s not it.”

“Then let me,” he says, and he means to think of something else to say, something to describe that might make her eyes flutter shut, but he stares at her instead until she sighs. “C’mon, Hawke. Let go.”

“Maker, you make it sound so easy,” Hawke mutters, and she rolls off of Varric and onto the bed, sprawling out on top of it. “Fine. Make me see beyond the mortal realm, if you’re so amazing.”

Varric bites back any retort he might have; the hammering in his chest goes wildly offbeat as he realizes what he’s got himself into. He takes one long, deep breath through his nose and holds onto it - then he starts touching her.

It _is_ awkward at first, the way any first touch is awkward. She twitches when his fingernail grazes her collarbone, she lifts her hips when he touches her ribs. He decides he’ll undress her, first - and Hawke blinks at him as if Varric has grown a second, uglier head.

“What?” he snaps.

“Nothing,” she whispers, and tugs her tunic off.

Varric has to give himself a moment. He’s seen her bare breasts once or twice, but it was usually with her laughter echoing through Fenris’ mansion after a game of cards, her hands covering her nipples. Tonight she lies bare on her sheets, nipples hard in the cool air of the estate, chest rising and falling with each breath.

He cups her right breast and squeezes gently. She hums, appreciative - he thumbs the hardened nipple and watches her back arch. Hawke breathes harder. She smiles at him. He doesn’t smile back, focused. He leans down, touches his mouth to that nipple, flicks his tongue across it. He shifts to the other side, kisses her left breast, rounds his palm around the curve of it. It’s unimaginably good, the shape of it a perfect, satisfying curve in his hand. He sucks on each nipple in turn, playing with their hardness, and Hawke twitches and sighs under him, egging him on as she tenses.

“Hawke?”

“Maker,” she hisses. “What?”

“You all good?”

“Shut up, Varric,” she whispers, her voice quivering.

He kisses down her stomach. Her abdominal muscles heave with her movements. They’re not as hard as they were when he first met her - she’s softened in ways, her hips a little wider, her breasts fuller. He likes Hawke lean and muscular. He likes her like this, too, edges all gone.

“Varric.”

She’s still wearing those awful leggings, those thin-fabriced, overworn leggings with patches missing over the thighs. He hooks two fingers into the waistband and gently tugs them down. Hawke, in a sudden, impatient frenzy, kicks the leggings to the floor, her undergarments along with them.

Varric blinks and looks at her again. He looks at the way the shadows loom over her body; her stomach, her thighs, her chest. He looks at the patch of hair at her groin, dark and thick, hiding her from him.

He tries not to say anything. He tries to bite his tongue.

“Maker’s breath, Hawke,” he says instead, “you’re beautiful.”

Hawke all but growls. “Get on with it,” she snaps at him.

The last thing that Varric wants to do is _get on with it_ but he heeds her request at least partially, dipping his hand between her thighs. She relaxes, then tenses - lets out a sharp breath and then a low, long moan. He presses his palm to the space between her thighs and curls his finger at her cunt, searching. It takes him a few seconds of tracing through the wetness to find the space where she opens, and he breaches it with his index finger, feeling her stretch against him.

“Varric,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“Come on.”

Varric hums. He presses the finger deep into her, steadies himself so he has a good angle. Hawke is already lifting her hips, coaxing him further, tense under his hand. He crooks the finger and she squirms. He shifts to make room, teases the second one against her hole. She gasps, then laughs. His middle finger joins the index, and he curls them both inside of her. Hawke’s entire body shudders, and he feels it in his fingers.

“Please,” she says.

He starts a rhythm. 

“Oh, Maker,” she curses.

He fucks her, and his head spins.

Hawke presses her head back into the sheets. There’s a sheen on her brow. He barely notices. His wrist hurts. He fucks her harder, thrusting his fingers as deep as he can go.

Hawke reaches between her thighs and starts rubbing her clit. “Harder, Varric, I can’t,” she says, and whatever words she’s looking for dissipate, and turn into broken moans. Varric doesn’t stop.

He knows it’s right when her body spasms and her cunt clenches around his fingers. She lets out one last breath and her hand stops and she collapses into the sheets with a wild grunt. He stays like that for a moment longer and then slides his fingers out of her. They’re slick in a way Varric thought only the worst written erotica could get away with. Hawke is heaving on the bed, laughing now, an arm thrown over her forehead.

“You know,” she says after a moment, “I really never thought about your hands like that.”

“Sorry?” he says.

“Just...your fingers are quite thick.”

“They’re proportional,” he says, lightly.

She giggles again. It’s a strange noise, uncommon for her, but lovely to hear. He watches her stretch, arch her back. Her stomach is slick with sweat, and it shines on her brow, into her hairline. She drags a hand through her hair, pushes it back onto the sheets. He swallows, ignoring the ache in his pants.

“Well,” she says, and again, her voice is strange. Soft. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Varric blinks at her. “Oh, you’re a brat,” he says as she grins. Hawke pushes herself up into a sitting position, pressing her legs together as she hums, eyes him for a second.

“Come here,” Varric says. He catches her in a smile, cracked lips upturning; she sighs into his mouth, and it’s wrong at first, her teeth catching his top lip. She curls her tongue, licks into Varric’s mouth and he’s cataloguing it for his next attempt at a romance. One day he’ll get it right.

Hawke’s hands make fast work of his tunic. She throws thin layers over Varric’s shoulders and spreads her fingers on his chest, laughing. “I know we joke,” she says, plays a finger down the line of hair. She presses her palm to his stomach and Varric breathes, at once willing her to keep going and praying she stops there and never moves again. “But the _chest_ hair, Varric.”

“Hawke,” he says, and his breath catches in his throat on the _cuh_ sound. She looks up at him, blinks. 

“Dare I say,” she says, “get on with it?”

He wants to laugh but anything he can think is stuck in a lump in his throat.

Hawke rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she says, “if you’re not going to give me any hints.” She tugs the buckle from his pants and Varric follows her lead, kicking off his boots. How he was in bed with her almost fully clothed, he isn’t sure. She does odd things to him.

“Ah, there we are,” Hawke says, her voice shifting into a lower register. She tugs his underwear down and off, and Varric moves with her, unthinking. She’s staring at him, some darker shadow over her eyes. “Can I?”

He doesn’t know what she’s asking.

He gulps, agrees.

He hears Hawke laugh again, but it feels like a distant thing, unreality.

“Get on your back,” she says, gently nudging him. Varric follows. How easy it is for her to take the lead. He used to believe the opposite; that the one first to come would always be a little mellowed, quieter, harder to coax. Hawke has clearly learned otherwise from her share of encounters, or perhaps she just sees Varric as someone to take.

She teases at first, and he should have expected as much. She presses her mouth to his hips, mouths at the patches of skin above the thatch of hair. She wraps her fingers around the base of his cock, loose, and tugs.

“Relax, Varric, we’re not in the Chantry.”

Varric struggles, for a slow moment, with what the hell she means by that. “That isn’t actually helpful, Hawke,” he ends up muttering because he can only picture fucking her in a Chantry now.

Hawke laughs. “Fair enough.” She settles between his legs and he shuts his eyes. Her dark lips round the head of his cock, and she gives a single gentle suck, then a second. Varric’s hips lift off the bed, his body still tensed. Hawke’s mouth loosens; she takes Varric deeper, towards the back of her throat. Her tongue flattens and curves around his cock, slick and hot. Varric fists the sheets, trying to hold the rest of himself together. But Hawke has other plans; she licks from base to head, popping off of Varric’s cock for a second to look up at him.

“Thoughts?” she says, wiping her mouth.

“Maker’s balls, Hawke,” Varric manages to grit out, “would you shut up?”

“Alright,” Hawke says. He hasn’t seen her this confident in what feels like, and maybe is, years. She sits up and stretches her arms over her head, brushing her hair from her eyes again. Varric’s cock sits stiff and wanting and he has a single moment where he regrets not grabbing her by the hair earlier and pushing her down.

That vanishes quickly enough when Hawke makes her plan clear; she settles each thigh on either side of Varric’s hips and maneuvers his cock in line with her cunt. She doesn’t warn him before she sinks down, sitting on his dick with a low, long sigh. His insides churn; she lowers until she’s fully seated, and then she twists her hips.

“Hawke,” he groans. She’s hot and perfectly tight around his prick, and he can think of nothing else, nothing better. Hawke stills completely for a moment, then rises, falls. She picks up on a rhythm after a moment, her hips grinding down on his. Varric tries to match her but they somehow keep meeting just off the beat. Hawke laughs about it, hunches over him so her back is curved and her hands grip his shoulders. Varric, in turn, takes hold of her hips and drives upward. He allows himself, for just this moment, to respond only to instinct. Hawke doesn’t seem to mind. She squeezes her thighs to his hips and rocks against him, quickening her pace to match his.

As they find that rhythm, Varric’s head blurs. Hawke grinds on his cock and he thrusts to meet her, and tension and heat build in his gut. He focuses on her, keeping her satisfied, holding back the feelings and fears roiling underneath. It’s when her fingers go to her cunt again, rubbing hard and fast and frantic at her clit, that Varric finally lets go. He digs his nails into the skin of her lower back and draws her toward him, and Hawke makes this sound, almost a shout, her voice pitching high with the moment’s fervor.

Varric is pushing closer to his climax, winding up into a tension so tight he thinks his body might just disintegrate. Then Hawke’s cunt tightens around him, spasms, and she’s gasping wordlessly, and then finally, in a high whisper, his name. 

Varric comes inside her with a grunt.

Hawke collapses on him for a moment, her breasts pressed to his chest, her face in the crook of his neck.

She laughs again, and rolls off of him. As she relaxes, Varric realizes her leg is still draped over his. He decides he can think of that all in the morning.

“That was lovely, Varric.”

Varric closes his eyes. “Anytime, Hawke,” he says. This time, he lets himself revel in the clear sound of her laughter echoing through the bedroom.

-

“Oh, Andraste’s ass, you two didn’t…”

“Excuse me?”

“You and Hawke,” Isabela snaps. “Did you fuck her in the arse? She’s walking different today.”

Varric blinks at Isabela. She’s standing in his door frame - with the door wide open - half-dressed.

“You need to start over,” he says, slowly. “And you need to stop barging into my room like this in the wee hours of the morning. People will start getting ideas, Rivaini.”

“Who cares,” Isabela says with a wave of her hand. She steps inside, uninvited, and shuts Varric’s door. “The point is, I just saw Hawke this morning, and she looked positively…” Isabela bites her lip, looking for the right word. “ _Fertile_ ,” she says.

Varric swallows at just the moment she says that word, and he manages to choke on his own spit.

“Hah,” Isabela half-shouts. “I knew it. You two did fuck. Fucking _finally_.”

“Rivaini,” Varric says, trying to clear his throat. “You are way too interested in others’ affairs.”

“I know,” Isabela says, shrugging. “Well, then I guess you didn’t fuck her in the arse.” She wiggles an eyebrow at him. “Yet.”

“Look, whatever you think, I don’t kiss and tell,” Varric says. He presses his palms into his eyelids, squeezing them shut. “I can at least tell you that nothing happened last night.”

“Oh, that’s even better. She’s happy, you know. Strange to see Hawke look...happy these days, isn’t it?”

“You don’t say,” Varric says. The truth is that he hasn’t seen Hawke since the night at the Estate. She had left him a note but been gone when he woke up, and though he lounged in her bed for a while, he eventually had to leave, with an awkward wave at Bodhan and Sandal, who were much too happy to see him. He didn’t think she was avoiding him exactly, but he had returned to the Hanged Man and she hadn’t come by. Until now, he supposes. “She’s here?”

“Just down the stairs,” Isabela says.

“You really just don’t know the definition of _subtle_ , do you?” Varric mutters. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Maybe,” Isabela says. “Come on.”

Varric manages to push Isabela out so he can get dressed and he heads downstairs. Hawke is indeed there, in full armor - unlike the rest of them. Anders is still tugging on his robes, looking groggy, and Aveline is flanking Hawke on the other side, her under eyes heavy with lack of sleep. Hawke looks tired but pleased to be surrounded by her cohorts, already bothering the bartender who glares at her wordlessly.

“Varric,” Hawke says when she sees him, and she trots across the room to him. “Ready to go?”

Varric looks at her, considers some quip about how she drags them around like her children, but all he ends up saying is, “Always, Hawke.”


End file.
